Belle pours her heart into her paintings. Photo: Angie Lim
She bends over a canvas, painstakingly bringing colourful masterpieces of flowers and animals to life. Despite suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease that results in inflammation and tissue damage in the organs, and having to spend much of her life undergoing treatments in the hospital, 13-year-old Belle Chok has a steely determination as she completes her masterpiece which will be sold to raise funds for her medical treatment.
Whenever she is hospitalised at Selayang Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, her father, a plumbing contractor, has to pay thousands of ringgit in medical bills. The medicines that she needs on a daily basis also comes up to RM60 per day (RM1,800 monthly).